Can't watch the Rockets or Astros games from home? Sign the Petition!

Conspiracy theories cloud CSN's distribution progress

By David Barron | January 19, 2013

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=7551874

Just as expectations escalate and tempers flare at the midpoint of the NBA season with the clock ticking toward baseball's spring training, words and emotions fly thick and fast in Houston's latest spectator sport: chatting, speculating and grousing about the carriage developments, or not, of Comcast SportsNet Houston.

Officials with the CSN Houston partners – the Rockets, Astros and NBC Sports Group – and the highest-profile carriage holdout - DirecTV – late last week issued their most pointed statements on the matter – ironically, at the same time a new round of conspiracy theories muddied the waters of a complicated, hot-button issue.

The bottom line remains as it has been since the network launched in October: CSN Houston is available in about 40 percent of the 2.2 million TV households in the Houston area, with no Rockets games on DirecTV, Dish or AT&T U-verse and limited cable carriage other than Comcast and a few small area systems as Astros season nears.

The network partners aren't happy. Distributors aren't pleased. And fans, particularly die-hard Rockets fans missing games because they don't subscribe to Comcast, are looking for someone with whom to be angry.

"You can't be a fan or customer of the team and in some way not be affected by the issue of television distribution," said Rockets CEO Tad Brown. "Absolutely every single conversation I have in some form or fashion ends up with a conversation about distribution.

"And I appreciate that. I want to have those conversations."

The issue remains money. CSN Houston wants what it thinks is fair market value – reportedly topping out at about $3.40 per subscriber per month in Greater Houston – and availability on expanded basic cable and satellite in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and part of New Mexico.

And the teams and the network are not shy about pulling out every emotional stop to get fans riled up at reluctant distributors.

"Fans should feel angry," said Matt Hutchings, CSN Houston's president and general manager. "They should feel they're being cheated by these distributors for not putting this channel and these two teams on the air. That's who they should be angry at."

"They're treating Houston differently from other markets," said Astros president George Postolos. "People don't take it kindly in this part of the country to being treated differently than people in the rest of the country are being treated."

From the other side of the bargaining table, Dan York, DirecTV's chief content officers, plays on many of the same themes that resonated during the fall election campaigns.

"What is happening in the sports television rights marketplace is unsustainable. The system is broken," York said. "Customers should know that DirecTV has their best interests in mind, whether they are hard-core fans of the teams or not.

"Someone has to stand up and defend families, which is what DirecTV is trying to do for its customers."

In the vast space between those viewpoints, CSN Houston this week will launch an ad campaign featuring Rockets and Astros fans, mentioning their providers by name and demanding action.

"It's called 'I Want My CSN,' but really, it's 'I want my teams. I want my Astros. I want my Rockets,'" Hutchings said. "We will have fans and VIPs and sports figures and politicians looking into the camera and saying, 'I pay my provider 'X' per month. I want my teams. I want to watch the Astros and Rockets. I want my CSN. Get it done.'"

Finding outspoken consumers should be no problem. Brown and Postolos said fans readily voice their frustration – Rockets fans, for now, more so than Astros fans, who are focused on the baseball team's off-season moves while the Rockets are at the midpoint of what they hope is a run to the NBA playoffs.

Some of that discontent focuses on comparisons to the Lakers, who launched a regional sports network in partnership with Time Warner Cable on the same date CSN Houston launched, at a reported subscriber fee of almost $4 per month for English and Spanish channels.

DirecTV, however, reached an agreement with Time Warner in mid-November, so its Lakers channel (absent games, under NBA regulations) can be seen in DirecTV's Texas markets while CSN Huston remains absent.

"We were able to come to a deal construct (with the Lakers and Time Warner) that was acceptable," York said. "To date, we have been unable to do that with the Rockets, Astros and Comcast.

"We remain interested in carrying the Rockets and Astros but have not been able to receive pricing that is fair and reasonable, nor are we being offered the ability to offer the network to customers on a more flexible basis to customers who are interested in paying for it."

The flexibility issue refers to DirecTV's wishes to put CSN Houston on a sports tier, with an extra charge per month, and not part of its expanded basic service as is the case for the teams' former carrier, Fox Sports Southwest. The teams and networks are holding out for expanded basic service throughout their five-state region.

Jeff Weber, president of content and advertising sales for AT&T Home Solutions, offered a similar statement AT&T U-verse. (Officials with Dish Network and Suddenlink Media had no immediate comment on the status of carriage talks.)

"We would love to make all of these channels available to our customers, but the sports programmers are making it very challenging with their unreasonable prices," Weber said.

"Customers aren't getting anything materially new or different when these regional sports networks launch. The programming is largely the same team games that were previously available on other channels we already carry, so the extra value is not being created."

Postolos has no sympathy for York's "system is broken" argument.

"We just want our fair market rate for the service," he said. "If you want to redefine or remake or break the market for regional sports networks, we would rather you do that in some market other than Houston."

One problem for CSN Houston is that neither local team is at the top of its game. The Rockets haven't made the playoffs since 2008-09, and the Astros are likely headed to a third straight 100-loss season as they move into the American League West with the Rangers, whose games will be available across the five-state area on FS Southwest.

The CSN Houston partners, however, say that's beside the point. They argue that Houston fans want to watch Houston teams, and Houston teams are available only on CSN Houston.

"Our fans need to be treated in the same way that fans in other major markets are treated by the carriers," Brown said. "If they are overlooking Houston teams, that will be a disservice to people here."

As emotions run high, conspiracy theories run rampant. The most recent came last week, with a Houston Press report that the Astros scuttled an agreement that would have provided CSN Houston carriage on DirecTV for the opening of the Rockets' season.

All three local principals - Hutchings, Postolos and Brown – said the report was incorrect.

"There was never an agreement in place," Brown said. "There was never anything that was even considered by the (network) board. There is no truth to the story."

Hutchings said the partners "have been unanimous in that we are all trying to get this channel fully distributed and want what is best, and there hasn't been any dissension."

Another conspiracy theory stems from Comcast's position as the largest cable provider in the area, with almost 700,000 subscribers (38.2 percent of the market). This theory holds that the NBC Sports Group is taking a hard line in contract talks so it can drive DirecTV, U-verse and Dish customers to Comcast.

"Absurd," Hutchings said. "It would be bad economics on Comcast's part. And the teams would never go along with such a limited view."

Carriage disputes, of course, are nothing new. The highest-profile dispute of recent note came in January 2011, when Time Warner customers in New York City were unable to watch Knicks games during the height of the Jeremy Lin "Linsanity" run.

That dispute was settled after NBA Commissioner David Stern encouraged the sides to settle their agreement and New York's governor and attorney general also counseled an agreement.

The CSN Houston case differs from the Knicks case in that it involves national providers, A spokesperson for Houston Mayor Annise Parker said she has not been asked to take a stance in the CSN Houston carriage talks, and there is no indication that Stern has been asked to intervene on behalf of the Rockets.

As the teams counsel fans to direct their ire toward distributors, they also counsel patience for CSN Houston's long-term future. Although the network itself is new, the Rockets and Astros have been negotiating TV deals in concert since 2003, and both say the shared venture is critical for the future success of both franchises.

"We believe completely in the partnership and structure of the network and what it is going to provide," Brown said. "I know that (Rockets owner Leslie Alexander) is as committed and excited as now as when the conversations about this first began."

"This is the model that works." Postolos said. "All the most successful teams in our league have affiliated regional sports networks. We went down this path because we want to be successful and bring multiple titles to Houston."

Two recent developments bolster the teams' arguments. The Dolan family, which owns the Cleveland Indians, in December sold SportsTime Ohio to Fox Sports for $230 million. Fox also agreed to increase the Indians' annual rights fee from $33 million to $40 million.

In November, News Corp., the parent of Fox Sports, agreed to acquire 49 percent of the Yankees' YES network with an option within three years to acquire as much as 80 percent of a network expected to be valued at $3.8 billion, according to The New York Times.

The Astros own 46.3 percent and the Rockets own 30.9 percent of CSN Houston, so both stand to make comparable windfalls by selling equity to the NBC Sports Group if the network succeeds.

So even as they settle in for the long haul and ramp up their "get it done" campaign, the CSN Houston partners offer conciliatory words for DirecTV and chief content officer York.

"We want to be partners with all the major distributors," Postolos said. "We want 100 percent distribution. That is our goal. It is in our economic interests and in the long-term interests of the teams."

"Dan is a good guy and a good businessman, and we'll be in business with him for a long time," Brown said. "We look at it the same way he does. We want a reasonable deal that is fair market, and we want to take care of the families that love the teams. We want to get something done as quickly as possible, and we think that is what he wants to do.

"This is not a matter of compromise. It's a matter of making sure we get it right. The concept of compromise is really the idea of real negotiation, That is where we are trying to be."

 

sorry, just realized i used the wrong link for it under the article title. thanks

 

Thus the petition. Might seem lame, but if the support grows to a significant figure I will add the email addresses of the major parties involved along with local representatives so that they are aware.

Did not want to include at the initial stage because having less than 100 signatures in a 24 hour period is abysmal and shows that there really aren't many of us who care. More time has been taken to ping the mental calamity that is Royce White than to simply sign a petition that says give me the rockets.

Clutch has essentially lined out how he will support a grass roots movement that comes from the board. How to best create a ground swell and what steps need to be taken.

However, if interest is more in complaining about why we don't have it than in how we can resolve it - there is nothing that clutch, the board, or the city of Houston can do about it.

#apathy - stings like a b**** but i'd rather just complain about it.

 

sorry - can't get past the qualifier. Is this not something that bothers you? I guess no harm if not, just amazes me if that's the case.